Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Satsuma Ceramics And The Importance Of Export Craft In Japan, Avery Keys

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Japanese Satsuma ware ceramics from the Meiji Period are an example of how artisans appeal to their buyers' preferences. Developed as a means to establish Japan as a contender within the global art scene, Satsuma ceramics was quickly picked up as a favorite by collectors in the West. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Westerners became obsessed with Japanese art after being exposed to exhibitions at World Fairs. The Japanese government took note of this and promoted the production of ceramic workshops specializing in Satsuma ware. Scholars often discuss whether this hindered the opportunity for artisans to work within …

Centuripe Ceramic Workshops And Their Distinct Funerary Vases, Avery Keys

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Ancient pottery from Centuripe, Sicily made during the Hellenistic period is an outlier when compared to most other red-figure, black slipped ceramics from Magna Graecia. Most Southern Italian and Sicilian vases have a distinct ornate style to them that was not a long lasting design choice in other Greek ceramic workshops. Funerary vases excavated in Centuripe's tombs provide a large collection of elaborate, decorative pottery that is not replicated anywhere else. Centuripean pottery was tempera painted with bright polychromatic colors. This unique quality of the ceramic ware has led scholars to focus on the color palette, the painted subject matters, …

Stephen Antonakos: The Spiritual Tenets Of Neon, Seville Partida

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Working without paint or brushes, Stephen Antonakos (1926—2013) created murals of neon light. These sweeping gestures of buzzing color achieve a meditative and spiritual quality yet remain accessible in their communal and urban settings. Douglas Crimp's 1981 essay, “The End of Painting '' argues that the most promising art of the time mounts a thorough critique on the myths of humanism, and consequently the cherished tropes of expressive painting. Antonakos’s career spans this period of upheaval, fraught by fears over the looming death of modernist painting as well as critical and curatorial activity that interrogated art’s structures. Although Antonakos seems …

Windows To The Infinite, Michael Suriano

Undergraduate Research Symposium

A research based installation art piece created for the ODU Math Department, celebrating Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art, World Cultures, and advanced concepts such as Penrose Tiling. Created to make math evocative and thought provoking.

The Goddess Of Morgantina: Aprhodite Or Demeter?, Martina Ciriesi

Undergraduate Research Symposium

"The Goddess of Morgantina" is considered one of the most controversial finds in the history of recent archeology in Sicily. The figure formerly known as "Getty Aphrodite," dated around 400 BCE, had been stolen by looters in Sicily, subsequently purchased by the Getty Museum in 1987, and returned to the Italian state only in September 2007. Unfortunately, illicit excavations have increased unresolved questions about the depiction of the goddess. The various hypotheses for identification of the female divinity represented in Morgantina's sculpture have sparked a lively and wide-ranging scientific debate among scholars. The archaeologist and art historian Antonio …

Dreaming Of Empire: Visions Of Rome And Imperialist Ideology In Twenty-First Century Cinema, Nathan Keckley

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The blockbuster film Gladiator kickstarted a new wave of ancient historical epics. Some of these, following Gladiator’s lead, drew explicit parallels between ancient Rome and contemporary America – notably Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011). The Rome-America analogy allowed Gladiator and its progeny to critique American society, and these critiques have received substantial scholarly attention. Given that these films were produced while America was waging controversial wars, it is unsurprising that one of the critiques they chiefly employ – and one of those scholars have most readily seized upon – is that of American imperialism. Gladiator, Centurion, and The Eagle …

The Knidian Aphrodite: Praxiteles As Voyeur And Feminist, Andrew Marlowe-Cremedas

Undergraduate Research Symposium

One of the most famous sculptures from the fourth century BCE is the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles. The Aphrodite was the first large scale nude depicting a goddess in Greek culture, despite frequent depictions of the clothed female form and the nude male. Scholars such as Robin Osbourne have explored the male reaction to Knidian Aphrodite through the lens of male viewers and its implications. The male gaze has described the gendered limitations of male viewership on female nudes such as Aphrodite. Other scholars such as Mereille M. Lee argue that Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos was enjoyed by a …

Fa'amatagi: From Whence The Wind Blows, Annette Roberts

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Fa’amatagi: From Whence the Wind Blows is a love letter to the people and culture of my parents. This is a documentary poetics project that draws upon research of the Mau Movement, archives from the New Zealand government, and personal ethnographies with my own parents who are both of Samoan descent. I curated several pieces of art from book collector Alexander Turnbull and photographer Alfred J. Tattersall. This project delves into the effects of colonialism on a previously isolated people. It explores the act of civil disobedience and what comes of it versus the long-lasting damage of compliance towards a …

1% Left Of 100: Taino History And Puerto Rican Identity, Alanis Gonzalez Torres

Undergraduate Research Symposium

1% left of 100 is a documentary poetics research project exploring the confluence of identity, family, and language. Crafted in a hybrid format that mixes Spanish and English according to my personal idiolect, which is itself a product of my heritage as a Puerto Rican, Africa, native Taino American, this poem engages with exciting new approaches to thinking about race which liberate us from talking about physical features and takes us instead toward race as a social fact, a product of culture, history, and family. I seek to intervene in a narrative of American history that, though it teaches about …

History Of The Wildcats Motorcycle Club, Rachel Mannetta-Torres

Undergraduate Research Symposium

History of The Wildcats Motorcycle Club will be presented by Old Dominion University student Rachel Mannetta-Torres.

Dignity Norfolk: How One Tidewater Group Enabled Gay And Lesbian Catholics To Form Long Lasting Friendships And Chosen Families, Chelsea Lembert

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In the past decade, research has been conducted to look into the history of the Queer Community of the Tidewater Region. Students and community volunteers have conducted interviews and gathered documents connected to the queer community to grow the study and breadth of available information for future researchers. However, more in-depth knowledge of community connections and familial ties within the queer community in the Tidewater Region was needed. Through research into Our Own Newspaper, local historical background information, and in-person interviews, I pieced together first-hand accounts of life through the eyes of a gay man or lesbian woman living in …

Wittgenstein And Hume On Miracles, Samuel Wheeler

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In this paper, I intend to contrast the positions of Ludwig Wittgenstein and David Hume on miracles. While Hume holds that miracles are violations of laws of nature which can never be probable, Wittgenstein would reject this definition. Instead, he takes a broader stance on miracles and holds that many events which are not transgressions of laws of nature can be seen as miraculous. And the point of this is to highlight the vastly different events we call miracles. Contra Hume, Wittgenstein thinks that even some of our greatest certainties can call up in us a sense of absolute wonder …

Caravaggio’S Faith And Good Works: A New Interpretation Of Saint Jerome Writing, And Its Implications About The Artist, Louis Berbert

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Over the past one-hundred years, much effort has been given to the analysis and interpretation of the many paintings produced by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio during his short lifetime. Unfortunately, many of the artist’s works have gone vastly understudied, such as his Saint Jerome Writing, completed in 1606. Several scholars have touched on the painting briefly over the years, such as Howard Hibbard, who suggests in his 1985 monograph, Caravaggio, that the piece touches on the transiency of life, as well as Sybille Ebert- Schifferer, who adds in her 2009 book, Caravaggio: The Artist and His Work, that …

Wear & Tear, Wymberley Davis

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Wear & Tear is a documentary poetics project acknowledging and addressing the systematic policing, silencing, violence, and stripping of self-expression that women have suffered at the hands of cultural, societal, religious, and sexist norms. Wear & Tear is a hybrid research project which draws together mass culture archives and uses heterogenous sources like advertisements and juxtapose these with excerpts from sacred texts which seek to proscribe and circumscribe women’s clothing choices. It models itself on archival works such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee which works with image, language, and voice. My project presents a distinctly material cultural history …

A Sense Of The South: Covid-19 Images, Kieran Rundle

Undergraduate Research Symposium

COVID19 coiled around each town and group of people differently. As a photographer living through the pandemic, I felt called to record it.

Over the summer of 2020, I received the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Grant. I embarked on a journey across the southern states as a journalist studying the social and economic impacts of the virus on tiny remote towns. For a month, I drove through the south with my camera and notebook in hand. The places I visited were remote and outside of the main clutches of sickness. I entered homes and businesses to discover just how far …

Late Bronze Age To Early Iron Age Ceramic Vases: The Documentation And Identification Of Odu's Cypriot Vase Collection, Jordan L. Staten, Sekoyah M. Mcglorn, Noelle E. Jessup

Undergraduate Research Symposium

ODU's Special Collections department has in its care a collection of five Cypriot vases, dating to the late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age on the island of Cyprus. The vases in Special Collections and University Archives came to ODU in 1968 from Dudley Cooper, who received them from the government of Cypress in 1963. This collection has never been studied intensively before. As a group, we have drawn to scale, measured, photographed, and created three-dimensional renderings of each vase in the collection. Through careful documentation of the vases, we have been able to identify reasonable comparanda for them among …

The Crown Act: Natural Hair Is Professional Hair, Aysia Brown

Undergraduate Research Symposium

During my Design Seminar class, one of our assignments was a “Needed Design.” For this assignment we were asked to create something we think the world needs. I wanted my "Needed Design" to be Acceptance.

In the United States it is currently LEGAL to deny people from jobs, schools, and other public places solely because of the texture and style of their hair, which greatly effects black people. There are currently only 7 states that have passed laws to ban natural hair discrimination. (Virginia is one of them!) This resulted in Crown Act being created. The Crown Act stands for …

Criticism Through Interpretation: Jules Olitski, Brooke E. Benham

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Modernist art critics tend to focus solely on formal elements. Clement Greenberg’s descriptive approach on the medium and Jerry Saltz’s off-the-cuff judgements fail to utilize the relevant insight that can be collected through cognizant interpretation. Susan Sontag attempts to justify the medium-specific approach by arguing that the merit of a work of art is independent of any interpretation. However, an interpretation based on historical and cultural connections can produce valuable insights about the form itself. A research-based analysis of Kristina Type 3 (1976) by the late-modernist painter Jules Olitski will show that criticism can serve viewers best through knowledgeable interpretation. …

Game Of Floods: Water Is Coming, Lily Daniels, Andrew Lindgren, Michael Neczyporuk, Madison Perry

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Through user experience testing and observation of player interactions, we examined the potential for a game to serve as a vehicle for risk communication and knowledge transmission. Our subject of study, Game of Floods, is a role-playing tabletop simulation game with the goal of educating participants on the threats climate change poses to coastal cities, with a specific focus on the drastic implications of sea level rise and increased rainfall. This game was originally designed by city planners in Marin County, California as a tool for public outreach regarding sea level rise adaptations (including, but not limited to seawalls, levees, …

The Problem Of Originality In The Work Of Sarah Lucas, Chelsey Burch

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Sarah Lucas is a contemporary British artist known for satirical and often crudely sexual assemblages and photographs. Although she is often celebrated for this brazen imagery, this essay investigates the stark contradictions found between her statements and her work, particularly in contrasting her claims of originality with her similarities to the work of such artists as Louise Bourgeois and Marcel Duchamp. Through analyzing interviews and comparing her work with that of other famous artists throughout modern history, it posits that her strategy entails the purposeful imitation of a variety of inconsistent styles. Her work questions the idea of originality itself …

Tagged: Assigning Authorship To Figural Graffiti In Ancient Pompeii, Sarah K. Gorman

Undergraduate Research Symposium

While graffiti is an inevitable part of any modern cityscape, it is not a modern convention. Examples of man’s desire to write on walls can be found as early as the Paleolithic Era. Thus it is not surprising that large amounts of graffiti, both figural and textual have been discovered in the ancient city of Pompeii. Most scholarship attributes these inscriptions to elite, albeit naughty schoolboys, however, this narrow interpretation neglects the copious amounts of graffito discovered throughout homes and along the city’s walls. Through examination of these drawings, it becomes evident their artists comprise the totality of Pompeian citizenry.

Oh, Susanna: Exploring Artemisia’S Most Painted Heroine, Kerry Kilburn

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656?) was a rare female Baroque artist who successfully established herself in the field of narrative history paintings. Her work included several series of paintings representing variations on a single theme. Her “Susanna and the Elders” series is unique among these: it contains the largest number of paintings executed over the longest period of time with no repetition of image types. This series exemplifies Artemisia’s practice of portraying heroic female protagonists and her narrative originality. Her potential identification with the character of Susanna moreover has allowed Artemisia to create a series of rare insight and nuance.

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A Critical Analysis Of Media Images Depicting The New Athletic Body Ideal And One Woman’S Experience With Them, Kelsey Mischke

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The idea body type for women in the United States now requires not only a thin physique, but visible muscle definition and fitness, as well. This athletic body type must still poses feminine qualities such as large breasts, a small frame, and curves. This new level of perfection has been created by advertisements, fitness magazines, and internet memes. However, this ideal body type is still computer generated, created from parts of multiple women, and largely unobtainable. Since its emergence, little research has critically assessed these images and their effects of women’s self-evaluations. A feminist perspective will used to determine what …

Ideology In Stone: Re-Interpreting The Architecture Of Albert Speer For Contemporary Germany, Anna Rice, Allison Maleska

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Many buildings built under the reign of Adolf Hitler with the purpose to aid the Nazi party’s political and ideological agenda are still in existence and located throughout present-day Germany. During a 2014 faculty-led MSU Study Abroad Tour, student investigators collected data about the work of Albert Speer. Speer, an infamous architect of these times, played a key role in the development of many structures important to the Nazi party. Speer’s intent was not only to influence the people of his time; he was planning the impact the buildings would have for generations to come. This poster will present how …

History Of Women And Alternative Medicine, Megan Eineke

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Alternative medicine has been used all over the world for centuries. From meditation to hydrotherapy, both men and women practice these modalities. Alternative medicine is an important part of the history of medicine and women have played a crucial role in traditional medical and other healing-related careers. This research project examines health activism among feminists and how that has played a role in what alternative medicine has become today. Information gathered from journals, articles, books, and biographies will be used to create a timeline to share how and when specific events and women influenced the reemergence of alternative medicine and …

Janteloven And Social Conformity In Thorbjørn Egner’S Literature, Ellen Ahlness

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Janteloven is a set of fictional laws detailed in Danish author Aksel Sandemose’s 1933 book, “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks,” which satirizes the Scandinavian view towards individuality versus the collective. These laws, consisting of rules such as “thou shalt not believe thou art better than us,” direct a negative attitude towards those who stand out from the cultural norm. This contradicts the ever-growing ethnic diversity in Norway today. Today, Janteloven is regarded as a sociological term describing the unified mindset in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway that champions societies where inhabitants are encouraged to set the community’s needs over the individual’s. …

Deadly Medicine And World War Ii: Cautionary Insight Into Ethical Guidelines Left Unchecked, Annette Finley-Croswhite

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Chair: Dr. Annette Finley-Croswhite, Department of History

Presenters: Jessica Madril, James Hennessey, Sarah Keck, Lindsey Northup, Elisa Hendrix

Art Education: Critical Thinking, Collaboration And Community Connections, Patricia Edwards

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Chair: Patricia Edwards, Department of Art

Presenters: Autumn Bailey, Leanna James, Ruth Freisenbruch

New Research In Renaissance And Baroque Art, Agnieszka Whelan

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Chair: Dr. Agnieszka Whelan, Department of Art History

Presenters: Andrea Dalton, Olivia Morgan, Cristina Irizarry, Carly Sutphin, Yvonne Frederick

New Research In Modern And Contemporary Art, Vic Colaizzi

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Chair: Dr. Vic Colaizzi, Department of Art History